Daily Readings: Acts 23:12-35; 1 John 5:13-21; John 12:12-23
Ընթերցուածքներ` Գործ. ԻԳ 12-35; Ա Յով. Ե 13-21; Յով. ԺԲ 12 – 23
In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen!
This year the entire Christian world celebrates the 1700th anniversary of the formulation of the Nicene Creed. In the Armenian Church this is known as our Havadamk, which we recite at every Divine Liturgy following the Gospel reading of the day. This Creed is our confession of faith, what we believe, as the opening words say, agreed upon by all the Churches during the first ecumenical council in 325 AD in the city of Nicaea. Of course, as Christian’s what we read in the Scriptures is what we believe but there are many things we might read in the Holy Scriptures that we don’t understand, that need interpretation. Therefore, the Creed is a more direct emphasis on the non-negotiables, the absolute concrete things we need to believe if we are to be a Christian. This is an important distinction my dears, because it is not enough to say we believe in God or to say we believe in Jesus. In fact, it is not enough to say we believe in the miraculous healings or teachings of Jesus. It is not even enough to come to Church and pray. This might seem strange but even the Holy Scriptures are full of examples of people who claimed to believe in God, or who wanted to see Jesus or experience His miracles but who refused to follow Christ.
In today’s Gospel, we read, “Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks.” (v.20) This is during the time of the Passover and when Scripture says Greeks came up to worship, it means these were pagans, who perhaps believed in some Jewish practices and so attended the temple, yet, they were not fully converted members of Judaism. Perhaps they had heard of Jesus and wanted to see his acts. Perhaps we know of people like this in our life, or we are like this ourselves. We say we believe in God, we say we believe in Jesus Christ and everything that He has done; we even come to Church, light a candle or say a prayer. Yet, we our hearts haven’t fully converted. We still place our hope and trust in astrology, good luck charms, horoscopes, superstitions, etc. We talk about karma, and shakras, and energies of crystals. We make statements such as “we all believe in the same God, just expressed differently.” I once had a conversation with a woman who completely dumbstruck me, when she told me she was a Christian wiccan. A wiccan is someone who practices witchcraft – something strictly forbidden and condemned by the Holy Scriptures and the Church. Hindus, Buddhists, and many other polytheistic religions believe in Jesus as a good teacher, a prophet, etc.
My dears, it is not enough to say we believe in Jesus or God; it is not enough to look for Jesus for His teachings, or His miracles. Which is why, when those pagans came looking for Him, Jesus answered, “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.” (v.23) Glorified through His betrayal, Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection. Glorified meaning fully revealed to us; the why and what we believe about Jesus Christ as God the Son. That is why St. Paul is so adamant in 1 Corinthians 15, that if Christ did not die, and resurrect than everything we do, our faith, being a Christian, our Church and belief is not only fruitless and pointless, but it is a misrepresentation of God. My dears, what makes us a Christians is not in our desire to look to Jesus, or how often we come to Church, or how many candles we light or anything else. These are practical expressions of our Christian life. Rather, to be a Christian, to truly worship, we must participate in Christ Jesus, be in Communion and be transformed through faith into the image and likeness for which we were created in. We must die to ourselves, pick up our Cross and follow Jesus with our very lives. This means to repent, to confess, to only come to God who heals us.
That is why the Church is a hospital – a place of healing, a place of diagnosing our ailment, and where we are all welcome. Yet, if all we do is go to the hospital, sit in the cafeteria or sit in the lobby, only see a physician but never follow the physicians’ instructions, than the diagnosis we suffer with will remain and we will be left unsatisfied and unhealed. Nonetheless, Christ our Lord calls all of us, pagan and non-pagan, Jew or Gentile, male and female, adult and child, broken, or hurting, regardless of what society deems as, Christ says come to me, and when we follow our Lord, when we live our faith, participate in the life of faith meaning the Church and what we learn here we live out in the world, than our lives will be transformed and we will see Christ not merely as a teacher or historical figure but as our Lord and Savior. We will be transformed to recognize the glorified and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.
So yes, my dears, it is beautiful that as one body, as one Holy Church we celebrate and proclaim Havadamk – We believe…, however, we must exercise our heart and mind to recognize that what we believe must be lived. That as worshippers of God, we worship, we commune and confess only One God, who heals us, illuminates us and through the Cross reveals to us who He is. So that we will not merely be a Christian by name or words but so that we will become an imitation and reflection of Christ to all those who seek Him. To be a light in darkness, to be hope to the hopeless, to be a real Christian is to be Christ. And when we become like Christ in our daily lives, then all who seek Him will find Him not only as a teacher or person of the past but as the living God who sees us and calls us to Him. May our lives be transformed; may we be illuminated to what we believe and may we be grow from glory to glory, as we glorify our Heavenly Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, now and always, Amen!
St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Church 